Duchess of Terra (Duchy of Terra Book 2)

by Glynn Stewart

“Understood,” Jean said flatly, gesturing for one of the people gathering around him to contact Salvatore. “Washington can’t take Canberra on her own,” he said grimly. “Captain Sade?”

  “Beijing is…partly ready to fight,” the ethereal blonde captain said calmly. “We have a computer virus in our system that has discharged our proton capacitors and is disabling our targeting sensors.

  “Now that we have communications, I should be able to take telemetry feeds from Washington and add my missiles to her salvos,” Sade noted. “Canberra’s tough, but she’s no better armed than we are. I’ll form on Washington and we will run her down.”

  A tap on Jean’s screen brought Lougheed into the conversation.

  “Captain, have you been updated on the other destroyers’ status?” Jean asked.

  “I’m being relayed telemetry,” Lougheed confirmed. “I am one point two light-seconds behind Canberra and holding the range. Her shields are holding and she’s starting to return fire.”

  “Beijing will be joining you,” Sade told him. “I suggest you let the range open to three light-seconds as we close up.”

  “Every kilometer of distance gives his Sword and Buckler systems more time to shoot our missiles down.”

  “But a doubled salvo is still more likely to get through,” Jean overrode him. “This is a bad-enough day, Captain Lougheed. No glory-hounding. Canberra must not escape; is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Jean told them, cutting the channel and turning back to his staff.

  “Get me Salvatore,” he snapped.

  #

  Sitting in an armored room at the heart of a reinforced building hundreds of thousands of kilometers from danger while her people fought for her lives did not suit Annette Bond at all.

  “There has to be something I can do,” she hissed quietly.

  “You’re doing it,” Elon told her calmly, though she could see his own hands twitching with the urge to be acting. “Right now, the most valuable thing the Duchess of Terra can do is be out of the line of fire and let your people do their jobs.”

  “Canberra is through the defense constellation and running fast,” the report came. “Washington and Beijing are in pursuit, but Canberra has deployed their Buckler drones.”

  “Not exactly how I wanted to put them through their first live-fire test,” Elon said, checking over the data and whistling softly. “I’d have preferred these results to be a pleasant surprise.”

  The constellation was throwing literally hundreds of missiles at the destroyer, but the six Buckler drones trailing in Canberra’s wake were shredding them.

  “Stern chase and a low relative velocity,” he continued. “Perfect circumstance for point defense, but still…”

  “Could you congratulate yourself when your work isn’t letting a madman escape with one of our warships?” Annette said sharply. The helplessness was getting to her.

  “Canberra has cleared the effective range of the defense constellation. Multiple salvos still inbound on her, but no further launches can reach her except from the destroyers.”

  “Get me a channel,” Annette snapped. “If this asshole wants to fuck with my people, let me at least try to talk to him.”

  “He’s ignored channels from Lougheed and Villeneuve,” Elon pointed out. “What makes you think…”

  The system lit up with a green light, declaring it had a two way, time-delayed link.

  “And just what do you have to say, traitor?” Commodore Joseph Anderson demanded. Being in hiding as a member of a resistance movement didn’t seem to have been a burden for the man. He was just as tanned and heavyset as he’d been when he and Annette had clashed over Tornado’s loadout.

  “I’d like the ship you’ve stolen back,” Annette said harshly, “so, as much as I’d like you to be space dust, I’m prepared to entertain your surrender.”

  Anderson laughed.

  “Your boytoy built a fine ship,” he told her. “There’s no way the two tin cans chasing me are going to win this. You lose this round, traitor.”

  “You can’t do much with one destroyer,” she warned him. “Trust me, more than anyone alive, I know that.”

  “I’m not a traitorous bitch to roll over at the first offer of a better deal,” Anderson spat. “You’ll see. You and your alien friends. You’ll see what happens when a real officer takes up the fight!”

  “You’re being chased by two of the only officers in Sol with experience in interface-drive combat,” Annette told him. “If there are any ‘real’ officers involved, it’s them. If you won’t surrender, I suggest you make your peace.”

  She cut the channel.

  “That was pointless,” she admitted. “But I’ll be damned if it didn’t make me feel better.”

  “I don’t know if it was pointless,” Elon replied. “Look.”

  The last salvo from the defense stations slipped through the defenses, as if someone was distracted, and ripped apart four of the Buckler drones while hammering Canberra’s shields.

  “They can’t have been distracted,” she told him.

  “You’re assuming Anderson has professionals,” her lover pointed out. “And not whoever he could convince to sign on for this insanity.”

  “It’s down to Sade and Lougheed now,” she replied. “Hopefully, that was enough.”

  #

  “Canberra is down to two Bucklers and her Sword turrets for missile defense,” Arendse reported. “We’re matching our salvos with Captain Sade’s, but…”

  Andrew’s navigator, currently his acting tactical officer, trailed off and he nodded his understanding.

  Their missiles were in stern-chase mode, only moving at about twenty percent of lightspeed versus their prey when they arrived. That left them easy meat for defenses designed to handle missiles moving at up to ninety-nine percent of lightspeed relative.

  As he nodded, Washington trembled again as another salvo of Canberra’s missiles slammed home. Those were point seven five cee missiles and being fired right down his throat, a final relative velocity over four times that of his own missiles.

  They were getting one missile in ten through. Without any kind of matching defenses, Canberra was scoring four hits in five…which said more about the lack of experience of Anderson’s crew than anything else.

  “I don’t suppose you have any clever ideas,” Andrew asked Captain Sade over a private link. “I’m running on a skeleton crew here; we’re barely in the fight, let alone able to come up with clever ideas.”

  “Beijing’s not much better,” she admitted. “It would help if we knew where the bastard was running to.”

  “It’s not like his vector is going to help us, unless…” He trailed off, watching half a dozen missiles miss completely as Calypso jinked his ship in a fashion no reaction-drive craft could match.

  “Martin,” he snapped, drawing the attention of the PO helping Arendse run the tactical console. “Project a direct line of Canberra’s course. If Anderson was flying a reaction-drive ship, where would she be heading?”

  “They infiltrated a bunch of people onto our training crews,” Sade pointed out. “He can’t have that incompetent a crew.”

  “He’s got techs and noncoms, not bridge officers,” Andrew disagreed. “We may have missed Warner, but the bridge officers were vetted closely. Whoever is flying the ship knows how it works but doesn’t understand what it means.”

  “Ceres, Captain,” Martin interjected. “She’s on a direct course to the old Ceres base for the Belt Squadrons.”

  “I thought that was blown up,” Andrew pointed out.

  “So did I,” Sade agreed. “On the other hand, we thought BugWorks was blown up. What’s your plan, Captain?”

  “Slugging it out like this is giving Canberra all of the advantages,” he said grimly. “Any chance of you getting your targeting back?”

  “Not soon,” she admitted.

  “All right. I want you to break off and run for the gravity
limit,” he suggested. “Make a micro-jump through hyperspace and beat him to Ceres. You’ll have your beams back online by then, won’t you?”

  Sade’s answering smile was utterly predatory.

  #

  It took most of Washington’s missile magazines to kill another Buckler drone, leaving Canberra with one of the defensive platforms intact…and Andrew Lougheed almost entirely out of missiles.

  Petty Officer Calypso was discovering a talent for interface-drive maneuvers, twisting Washington through a series of evasive maneuvers that no reaction-drive ship could match. The missiles being fired at them were capable of adapting…but only if the people launching them knew how.

  It was rapidly becoming clear that Joseph Anderson’s people had no clue how to fight their new ship. Canberra’s defenses had proven more than up to the task of absorbing her pursuers’ missiles, though, and the two ships had identical speeds.

  Still, Andrew persevered, taking the occasional long-range shot as his proton beams finally came online—to make Anderson think he was still hoping for a lucky hit, if nothing else.

  They were still several minutes short of their guess as to his destination when a new message caught up to them from Earth.

  “Captain Lougheed, this is Major Salvatore aboard BugWorks Station,” a crisply accented voice announced. “We have located and disabled all bombs aboard the station, and BugWorks is now secure.”

  A flash on the screens warned Andrew what was coming next before the Ducal Guardsman spoke.

  “Our attempt to safely retake Ottawa was not successful,” Salvatore continued grimly. “The bombs aboard detonated when we boarded the ship. Both BugWorks station and Geneva have been damaged but remain operational.

  “Anderson has failed in everything except capturing that ship. Bring him down, Captain.”

  Andrew smiled grimly, studying the map.

  “That was a wide-beam transmission, sir,” Martin announced after a moment. “There’s no way…”

  “That Anderson didn’t hear it,” Andrew agreed. “Salvatore and I share an opinion of our rebel friend—and here the bastard comes.”

  Canberra was turning back. Robbed of his full victory and with a dog biting at his heels, Anderson had decided he’d had enough of Washington and was coming back to finish the job. If Andrew had kept Beijing with him, it would have been a damned stupid thing for Anderson to do.

  As it was, it was…unwise. Both destroyers were low on missiles, the inexperience of Canberra’s missileers easily outweighing the upgraded destroyer’s better defenses. The refitted ship could take more hits, even from proton beams, but…

  In Anderson’s place, Andrew would have assumed that Washington would land more hits and kept running, relying on the asteroid belt to lose the pursuing ship.

  “Open up with proton beams at maximum range,” he ordered. “Maintain evasive maneuvers—he needs to hit us a lot fewer times than we need to hit him.”

  Plus, if Sade was following the plan, she was nearby and would hopefully pick up the change in situation.

  Proton beams were invisible to the naked eye, but Washington’s computers helpfully drew them as white lines in his holotank, marking where Canberra had opened fire from outside her actual range.

  “And…range,” Arendse said calmly, the last twenty minutes appearing to have burned away her uncertainty with her new console.

  They might have had a navigator at tactical, but Washington’s beams didn’t miss. The narrow streams of energy cut through Canberra’s shields in moments, smashing into her armor plating with brutal force.

  The upgraded destroyer lurched, spinning away from Washington and missing her next salvo of beams.

  “She’s not showing much damage,” PO Martin noted. “Hit her again!”

  Beams flickered through space. Washington lurched as the stolen ship got hits in, power flickering as a power core went into emergency shutdown…then leapt like a kicked puppy as the interface drive went down.

  “We’re dead in the water!” Calypso reported. “All engines down!”

  “Shields are intact for now, but…”

  Their sudden stop had caused Canberra to overshoot them, blasting past them and outside her proton beam range, but the destroyer was coming back. The upgraded destroyer was damaged, but not nearly as badly as Washington was.

  Then a blinking light flashed up on Andrew’s screen—a request for a telemetry link.

  He slammed an authorization key…and a moment later, a full salvo of interface-drive missiles flashed around his ship as Beijing charged out of the asteroid belt.

  Sade’s ship was still using his sensors to aim, but now her missiles were going straight down Canberra’s throat, and Anderson hadn’t been expecting them. The destroyer’s shields flickered…and failed, more missiles slamming home as Beijing swept up and over Washington and her proton beams flared to life.

  Canberra landed a single beam hit that Beijing’s shields easily shrugged aside, then Canberra’s armor came apart under the focused beams of energy.

  The last Weber Network holdouts died in a furious ball of fire.

  #

  Chapter 43

  While Annette knew no one was going to nominate her for sainthood for patience, she managed to keep herself groundside for a full twenty-four hours after the destruction of Canberra.

  After that, she overrode everyone’s objections and took a shuttle to BugWorks with Elon.

  Despite her many and varied reservations about the title, she was the Duchess and rank had its privileges.

  Villeneuve was waiting for her on the station, along with Adrian Salvatore and an escort of power-armored Guardsmen to back up her normal contingent.

  “Excessive much, Major?” she asked.

  “We are in control of the station, ma’am, but BugWorks was in enemy hands barely a day ago,” Salvatore said bluntly. “We cannot guarantee there are no holdouts hiding away. If you’re going to insist on being up here, I’m going to insist on this level of security.”

  “I know I’m being imprudent, Major,” she admitted. “I won’t argue with whatever precautions you think are necessary—but I need to see what’s going on. And everyone needs to know that I think BugWorks is safe.”

  “I hesitate to describe any facility we are still removing enemy nuclear bombs from as ‘safe,’ Your Grace,” Villeneuve told her.

  She shook her head at him.

  “People need to see me here,” she replied. “Our R&D people need to see me here, to realize we take the threat seriously. I doubt Salvatore’s Guardsmen are going to hurt that impression.”

  “We’re relaying the command links through a commandeered conference room,” Salvatore told her. “It’s probably the best place to brief you.”

  “Lead on, Major.”

  #

  Salvatore had apparently been listening to Annette’s reasoning for being aboard BugWorks, as the Ducal Guardsman made a point of taking them through some of the public areas where BugWorks staff, still shaky from the previous day, were gathering.

  It probably tripled, at least, the time it took them to get to the conference room, but Annette didn’t begrudge a second of it. The researchers and engineers on BugWorks were critical to the Duchy’s chance to survive and advance over the coming years.

  They needed to know their boss and government knew they’d been shaken. Elon and Annette shook hands and made promises, all with power-armored Ducal Guards discreetly looming in the background.

  Annette knew she made a poor politician. She meant every word she said, and for all that her smiles still felt faked to her, she actually did care. Stopping this kind of attack was why she’d taken the offer the A!Tol had made.

  In the final count, she didn’t believe she’d truly sacrificed her honor, but if she had…she’d done it so Earth could have peace.

  “All right,” she said as they took seats in the conference room. It had probably been relatively luxurious once, but the Guard had moved most of its f
urnishings to clear space for a holotank and command datalinks.

  The chairs that remained were leather and powered, automatically adjusting to her body. The soldiers might have moved the tables and potted plants, but no soldier in history would have moved those chairs.

  “Now that I’ve promised people this won’t happen again, please tell me I’m not lying,” she continued. “Adrian?”

  “We have removed seventeen thermonuclear charges from BugWorks,” the Guard Major said calmly. “Two remain. Yields varied from one to one hundred megatons. Had they detonated, this station would have been vaporized.”

  “The bombs aboard Ottawa did enough damage,” Annette told him.

  “Though less than I feared,” Elon reminded her. “Ottawa’s armor contained much of the blast. She’s gone, but the collateral damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

  She sighed.

  “How bad?”

  “Obviously, Ottawa, London and Canberra are gone,” Villeneuve told her. “Geneva is damaged, but thanks to Ottawa’s armor containing the blast and Geneva’s own armor, she is repairable.

  “Unfortunately, Washington is a write-off and so are the BugWorks refit yards,” the Admiral continued. “We have the Lunar Yards, with capacity for one super-battleship, and right now, that is it.”

  “We’ll be able to repair Geneva without a refit yard,” Elon noted. “It’s external hull work, mostly. Upgrading further Capitals, however, will require building new yards.”

  “At least the Lunar Yards are intact,” Annette said quietly. “What about Anderson’s people? Are we finally done with the remnants of the Weber Network?”

  “We think so,” Salvatore said slowly. “My people have boarded and secured the Ceres Fleet Base. Still searching for holdouts, but we are in control of the facility.

  “Even under the version of the Weber Protocols that Alpha Cell was aware of, the Ceres Fleet Base was supposed to be destroyed,” he continued. “I’d like to think we’ve found everything, but I can’t be certain.”